Lingering
by goddessa39
Summary: England is not a paradise and Narnia lingers. Mostly though, they just want to go back. Implied!L/E and S/P.


**Lingering**

The Narnia-verse does not belong to me.

Short Narnia AU.

Implied Peter/Susan and Edmund/Lucy.

England is not a paradise and Narnia lings. Mostly though, they just want to go back.

Genre: Angst/Supernatural

Rating: M for Mature, just in case, but no expected 'real' pieces.

Note: Very little to no speaking.

Note: sort of Anti-Prof.

* * *

They are old when they fall through the wardrobe for a second time, wrinkled and paler-haired. But there was magic in them still and most of the time they could laugh and feast without overly aching joints. Long hair down to her feet was a lighter black than it had been when she was in her prime but Susan the Gentle could float about the dance floor in the arms of her husband, content. With lighter hair than gold laughed Lucy, the cheerful bell laughter running about the halls like child feet in a game of hide-and-seek.

Then with the suddenness only found with an accidental death of a loved one, they retrace their first steps in Narnia by accident on a contented walk about the countries. Falling from the wardrobe as they entered each take stock on the floor. Edmund is on the bottom of the lot, where he quickly gets himself out from under the wait of his... siblings. It is not as simple as it should be though, because he is smaller than his brother as always but weaker too. Peter is the one directly touching him, where Susan has landed in his lap. Lucy is last, ever Valiant and Curious stands herself firmly and goes to touch the wooden grain of the wardrobe. Perhaps she is just still that child who believed a wardrobe could hold so much room. Or mayhap she is just the first to realize what has happened and seeks kinship with something close to what she wishes.

Peter and Susan are seclustered in the middle of the room as if hit with such a shock. Their hands are intertwined, gripped tight to whiten ghosts.

Behind Lucy, Edmund the Just, King of Narnia stands up behind her, wrapping thin arms around her too-small frame. There are tears running down faces of some but each holds the heartbreak within suddenly younger eyes. The experience within them does not match the tales of this reality.

Later, Professor Kirke opens the door with a cheerful expression to see the Pevensies as a unit trying desperately to get back in but is only met with anguished faces.

They say nothing as Kirke speaks of giving up childhood and magic, of growing up. They say nothing but cling as a unit. Aslan has betrayed them, it seems. The Lion gave them love and magic and a home when their own was interrupted and then like a magician pulled the rug out from under them to show that Narnia was in fact just a desert mirage.

Two beds fill that night and for nights long. High King and his bride in one bed, and Younger sister with her big Justly brother. Because Narnia was magic, but the women remember full bellies and kicking babes within, of spoiled children and motherly affection, of passionate nights with their spouse and other siblings in the days.

_Reality is hell._

By the time their mother collects him near the end of the war, the four young-in-body people have adjusted well enough to fool Kirke and his housekeeper but are still not prepared for what the society holds for them.

Even their mother has realized that they have change. "So how was the Professor's?" she asks, and the four spout of approval at the man and the time they have spent there but only feel suffering.

Lucy spends her time redecorating graying tablecloths and curtains, editing the skirts and dresses of her and Lucy's to a more lovely and flowing angle. She stitches with an expertise shocking to their mother and when asked mentions how Kirke's housekeeper knew her stuff. After all, she had to do something that was adult. It is a lie of course but they have become too different people for those to be noticed. Lucy lives in the kitchen when their mother is on her child-watch. She cooks, yes, and she cleans, yes, and she looks for ingredients that are not there or, "how have you ever tried that?"

Peter goes around the house sawing off corners and making the house child-proof for children that are not there and grandbabies that will never be. Edmund spends time mentally critiquing every person they meet, even going as far as to cleaning the rifle their father eventually brings home and placing it high and gleaming over the mantelpiece though the four of them hate war and all have to reacquaint themselves with the times. Neighbors that come over have names and faces that have to be relearned and even their patriotism has to be acted. Peter feels like a spy in his own house.

Mother and Father, as they all are careful to name the 'adults' in the house notice how they sit more inclined as their four children go about the house as if it is theirs to bring to order. Thankfully, they are mostly able to let it go as "the war must have been hard on the children."

Lucy shakes inaudibly in the grip of her husband's arms at night, her pale locks flowing the medium-short hue of Ed's. She curls and feels like a tiny child with too short feet and too short hands and too short stature. Her word means nothing in this adult world where it once was taken as Law. They pretend not to notice how Susan has crawled into Peter's [long but not near long enough or strong enough] arms in his one-person bed. Peter kisses his own mate hard on the lips to muffle cries and wipe away tears. It is an ongoing thing only waved by the arrival of their father who checks their beds of his young growing children, trying to remember them and compare to what he sees. He is back from a war that has taken him from his home for important years. The four 'young people' empathize. They too have known war and nights spend in rough conditions away from their homes and families.

While most of their spirits and actions can be muffled, the affection shown between the four of them is obvious. Peter is easy to spot with his arm around his younger sister's shoulders or waist. His blonde hair is shining and someone mentions, in hearing, that he would make such a good husband to some girl of only he was not so attached to his sister. Edmund blocks any of those ideas by stating loudly that Susan would make a good wife without her big brother there being all over-protective. Of course, little fair youngest-Pevensie stays out-of-sight here because Edmund is vicious in his jealousy.

England is not their home.

The four sneeze often at the smells of 'future things' and gaseous things in the air where Narnia was clear springs and fresh air of the wild. Electricity is something they have remembered fondly in days of candle lights and camp fires, but in action it is an alien feeling. Their childhoods had been over and now they are back.

In the normal world, Lucy can busy herself by 'playing with dolls' when in reality she is replaying events and pretending she is back with her family in that magic world. Edmund can even claim to be amusing her, or watching her while their parents are out or working.

Susan and Peter are not so lucky. Both have beautiful looks [and of course they do because they are the High King and Gentle Queen] and dark features. Society says that Susan is so graceful. Ladies on the street mumble about how Peter is "tall, dark and handsome." The first Queen of Narnia can go about without a frown or tears in her eyes only because she was once the ambassador of the group. Edmund was too over-protective, Peter to paranoid of strangers, and Lucy to positive. As expected, she can go about on 'dates' with many young boys whose favor she has caught, and her big brother will go about as a chaperone, inevitably distracting the boy with something, and then stealing his sister away for a dance of grace not seen in Society. The mamas about just shrug and smile at the boy who is 'saving his sister from disgrace,' whether speaking of acts not to be acted on till the marriage bed, or from just being alone on what should be a date.

Their parents get usual notes from school. Lucy is a welcome dreamer, of course, and she keeps all her notes in a private notebook nobody keeps against her. What most do not see is that she is writing out the story piece by piece because they do not know of the magic of Narnia and The Lion will steal from them their memories as well. Fair Edmund is such a good sport, doing all his work ahead of time and not needing any tutoring except in History. But then, all of them need a little help on Historical events. Everybody notices how Susan, on the edge of adulthood as she brightens like an opening flower, has a soft step that flows like a dancer's move. It is little surprise that she takes to the couture and acts of Lady Women. Dark-eyed Peter spends time on the field doing long hours of running or time with a wooden sword.

It takes time, but they fit themselves onto pieces of England's requirement for its citizens with the ability only people with experience of life could really achieve.

Even in the act though, sometimes a smell of an herb or the feel of a blowing wind as if the accentuate an ocean current finds itself sent across Pevensie skin and for a moment the four of them are back at court with their babies and babies' babies around them, happy and content even in the harder times. But then it is gone and they are back in England and Narnia is... Narnia lingers in their memories as much as it does upon their skin.

Each sleep holds a nightmare wrapped in a beloved memory. Each good dream fools them long enough to bring up to totality of heartbreak.

This is the reality of England and London and of places that are not home, where brothers and sisters do not share a bed of love and adult desires. The days are spent wanting and acting and learning to fit places they do not quite fill equally.

Despite their smiles with glassy eyes and friendly hands, the four Nobles do not ever see themselves agreeing with this place of smoke and post-war excitement, though they do Love to see their long unneeded parents. Often they find a corner remembering a plant or a night or the soft and happy sigh of one of their children.

Alexander and Gregory and Adrianne and Annabelle and Charlotte and Camillia and William and Edwin and Micheal and Charles and Samuel and Eleanor and Evelin and Briar-Rose.

All they want is to hold hands and go back.

* * *

End.

* * *

Well, that came out of nowhere.

I am not a big Narnia reader so ignore most of canon ideas. This basically takes the basis of the movie and works with part of it. After all, four old kings and queens... would they really be walking together as if nothing is different with age, experience, and Ruling within them as if it was not all natural? This has no beta, but if you wanna, just send an email to me.

The names... use your imagination. I did imply incest in a magical land that likely does not believe heavily on birth control. But I guess if you are squeemish you can believe that they are other people or other peoples' babies.


End file.
